Latest blogs for Specialisms

The Charity Commission is worried about the number of charities not reporting serious incidents or taking a long time to do so. This has perhaps become a concern since the Commission raised a statutory inquiry into Oxfam in February, following allegations of misconduct by staff in Haiti. It is a Charity’s trustee’s responsibility to ensure…

Philip Hammond’s much predicted ‘End to Austerity’ Budget was a lot more positive than similar pronouncements of recent years. Although UK growth is still sluggish (predicted at 1.6% for 2018), higher than expected tax revenues have enabled the public purse strings to be loosened. Announcements that will be of interest to technology SME’s include: New…

No audit sets out to conclude with total confidence that a set of financial statements are 100% free from any misstatement. To do so would belie the technological reality and scale of modern business; auditors would likely become a permanent fixture at client premises to review every single business transaction and audit would become an…

Technological advances in the ways that data is captured, processed, stored and communicated continually change the ways in which we do business. In the context of auditing, data analytics concerns the process of extracting, transforming, validating and analysing large volumes of data to make judgements and form conclusions. The way we approach auditing must change…

In the run up to the Autumn Budget, where it is widely speculated the Government will clamp down on IR35 in the private sector, barely a week goes by without another IR35 case being in the news. Employment tribunal claims are increasingly being launched by those caught by the IR35 reforms of the public sector.…

Those companies that continually go through funding rounds, such as your typical techco start-up, should be aware that HMRC are introducing a new tax election wef 6-Apr-19: Proposed legislation contained within the Finance Bill 2018 This election will allow shareholders who hold at least 5% of the company on 6 April 2019, and who are…

In a recent HMRC test case (Ames v CRC), the Upper Tribunal considered whether it was necessary for EIS income tax relief to have been claimed when an EIS investment was made, for the transaction to then potentially qualify for exemption from capital gains tax when the investment was sold. For the case in question,…

Occupying a let property as the only or main residence at some point during the period of ownership will not only shelter the gain relating to the period for which the property was occupied as the main residence (and also that relating to the last 18 months of ownership), but will also entitle a claim…

Retiring early is the dream for all of us, it is a chance to do more of what you enjoy, yet unsurprisingly the majority of us have never tried to calculate how much money we will need to save to live comfortably in retirement.  Your likely income needs will depend upon whether in retirement you…

We are fortunate to have many worthy charities in and around our area all making a huge contribution to our community. When it comes to the fraudsters charities do not have any exemption, in fact quite the opposite, they are often seen as a soft touch.  The Charity Commission has just published ‘Tackling Charity Fraud’…